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"We have lately heard of strange occurrences in France. What is to be the issue of republicanism there may now be doubted. Some here consider this last revolution as an additional proof of the impracticability of republican government. But I will never believe that man is incapable of self-government; that he has no resources but in a master, who is but a man like himself, and generally a worse man, inasmuch as power tends to deprave him. On the other hand I view this last revolution as an additional lesson against a standing army without which, it is evident Buonaparte could not have acomplished it, nor could now maintain it. Our vessel however is moored at such a distance from theirs that should they blow up, we need not feel the shock. We have only to stand firm at our oars, & nothing can injure us. All I ask from France & the world is peace & a good price for our wheat and tobacco."
Jefferson, a lifelong Francophile, desperately wanted to like Napoleon. Three years before he would double the size of the U.S. by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from the French ruler, Jefferson was struggling from afar to understand Napoleon's increasingly power-hungry motives. At first, Jefferson held out hope that France was in the hands of an enlightened statesman. By April 1800, when he addressed Everard Meade, a Virginia state legislator, Jefferson was growing disillusioned. He was worried that the French example of a republic lost to a despot would shake faith in the U.S.'s fledgling government. But thanks to its physical remoteness, the U.S., Jefferson felt, was safe from Napoleon's cannons and muskets--and his bad example.
ON THE DEATH OF A SLAVE
Feb. 4, 1800 To: Thomas Mann Randolph
"By a letter recieved to-day also from mr Richardson I learn the death of Jupiter. He has fallen a victim to an imprudent perseverance in journeying. I was extremely against his coming to Fredsbg with me ... but Jupiter was so much disturbed at this that I yielded. At the end of the second day's journey I saw how much he was worsted, & pressed him to wait at Hyde's a very excellent house till the horses should return & I got a promise of a servant from thence. But he would not hear of it. At Fredericksburg again I engaged the tavernkeeper to take care of him till he should be quite well enough to proceed. And it seems that immediately on his arrival at home, he took another journey to my brother's where he died. I am sorry for him as well as sensible he leaves a void in my [domestic] administration which I cannot fill up. --I must get Martha or yourself to give orders for bottling the cyder in the proper season in March. There is nobody there but Ursula who unites trust & skill to do it. She may take any body she pleases to aid her. I am in hopes if any keys had been delivered to Jupiter that they have been taken care of."